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Thursday, January 03, 2013

Looper Movie Plot Involves a Decision of Morality

I rented Looper (2012) last night from Redbox. The story of
the movie was not bad. I did not like the language. If you have a TV guardian -
the foul language blocker - use it with this Rated R movie.

Looper is a movie that incorporates time travel in its
story. And since this post has SPOILERS, do not continue reading if you don’t
want the plot points of the movie to be revealed.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a character named Joe. He is what
you call a “looper” because he does the dirty work for the mob of the future.
They’ll want to get rid of a person, so they’ll send the person back in time 30
years to a location where a looper is waiting. The looper will then shoot the
person with a blunderbuss shotgun, a short-range weapon that quickly kills a
man.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt does not look like himself in this movie, due to obvious makeup adjustments to make his face look more like Bruce Willis playing his older self in the future.

In the future, time travel is banned, and only the rich and
powerful mob has time-travel devices operated illegally. Since people are
harder to kill in the future (due to more efficient identification processes),
the mob sends a person back in time to 2044 to be taken out by a looper.

Part of the deal of being a looper, is that at some point
the mob will decide to “close the loop.” When this happens, the looper in the
future (which is 30 years older) is sent back with a bag over his head, and a
large payday of gold bars instead of the typical silver. The looper usually won’t
find out that he is closing the loop until after he tears open the victim’s
covering to find gold bars. At that point, the looper can cash out and live out
the next 30 years doing as he chooses.

One thing to point out is that some people have developed a
telekinetic ability in 2044. Those with the powers are called TK’s. The extent
of the majority of people is the ability to levitate quarters. That’s it.

The movie, Looper, is one that starts by following young
Joe, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and then at the point where old Joe
(played by Bruce Willis) is sent back, then we follow old Joe for a little
while.

Old Joe is kidnapped and sent back so his loop will be
closed, but first he must watch his love die at the hands of the kidnappers. As
he is being handcuffed, he breaks free but still goes back in time. He does not
wear his head-sack, so that young Joe can see that it is himself from the
future.

Old Joe goes back in time to eliminate the new Mob boss,
known as the “Rainmaker.” If there is no Rain-maker, then his wife in the
future will not be killed, and he will be able to live out his life with the person
that saved him from a life of drugs.

Old Joe brings with him the date of birth of the Rainmaker,
and the hospital ID #. He then narrows it down to 3 children, and is determined to kill them to avert future events.

Young Joe separates from Old Joe after they dispute about
what they should do. Old Joe is determined to take out the Rainmaker as a
child, so he can resume his happy life. Young Joe doesn’t care about his life
in the future. He wants to just kill his old self, in hopes that he can regain
his freedom back – the freedom that was stolen when Old Joe came back in time,
and aluded Young Joe at the moment he was to be killed.

Young Joe steals the corner of the map from Old Joe which has the
coordinates of one of the children. He goes there and wins over the heart of
the mother. After a brief stay on her farm, he finds out that the mother can
levitate a metal lighter, and that her child has powers that go beyond the
typical TK. He is very powerful and can destroy people and large objects when
he becomes angry.

Meanwhile Old Joe is taken back to the mob headquarters. He
breaks free and kills everyone except for his sole captor, a 20’s grunt that
only wanted to make the mob boss happy, because he is a father-figure to him.

Old Joe finds out that the Rainmaker is with Young Joe,
because Young Joe witnesses the boy destroy a former mob friend, Jessie. Old
Joe instantly gets this new memory as it takes place on the farm, and knows
where the Rainmaker is.

Old Joe then goes to the farm to find the Rainmaker, and
attempts to coax Young Joe to run away, because he still can.

However, there is a moral concept that arises in the movie
to be discussed. If you could go back in time to kill a person that does bad
things, would you?

Many people say they would go back in time and kill Hitler.
While you may think this is noble, it truly makes you no better than Hitler.
The concept in play is: The end does not justify the means.

No person should commit an evil or a wrong in order to bring
about a righteous ending.

Think about it, and if you want to watch a video
interviewing people with the question: “Would you go back in time to kill Hitler as a baby?” watch at this link.

2 comments:

I've been easy with the moral of Looper, since Young Joe decides that the right thing to do to save the boy and fix the future is to kill himself. I understand the point here that he is being self-sacrificial, but it seems that the suicide abrogates the ethic of life that the movie is set up to affirm. Thus, I've never been happy with the moral theme of Looper.